ALL of these characters should be in lockdown, and not in any basement

carmenjonze-1

These people's awful kids included.

Just to be clear on where I'm coming from, I booed when Janet and Ned sucked face at the end. And that stupid, stupidstupidstupid Brooke-Grover cliché, come on.

I hate movies set in the suburbs because I despise the suburbs. I hate movies about screeching, arguing, suburban married people who hate each other, because I hate screeching suburban married conventionalist dumbasses who hate each other. House Arrest was a 90 minute reminder of why I don't understand and ultimately don't care why these types of people marry each other, and hope they ALL get divorced and give the world some much needed peace.

So I guess we're back to Carmenjonze's First Law of Unwatchable Movies...a telling overabundance of violins, flutes and pianos in the score was the first and enduring indicator of just how bad House Arrest is going to get. The fact that it oh-so-self-consciously opens with Captain and Tenille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" -- and KEEPS PLAYING IT EVEN AFTER THAT STUPID KEY MODULATION -- is the final straw, and that's only about 4 minutes in.

Happily, I love JLC and Jennifer Tilly (who had the only interesting part in the entire flick), as well as Wallace Shawn. But what was Wallace Shawn doing in this movie?? Bad concept, bad script, bad acting, bad characters, bad, bad, bad people raising more brats to perpetuate the badness of the suburbs.

I wish they would have just f'n gotten divorced already. Then, we all could have sidestepped this exercise in vicarious misery, altogether. The ONLY thing that merited even a "1" was JLC doing a silly hula over the credits. Well, give it perhaps a 1 and a half. The relief brought by seeing the credits alone made this cranky critic very, very happy.

Alright, a very begrudging 2. Jennifer Love Hewitt's singing voice on" It's Good to Know That I'm Alive" sounds sufficiently like the fantastic Maria McKee of Lone Justice to make me look. Who knew? Right on. I guess.

score 2/10

carmenjonze-1 16 December 2005

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1242962/